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This week – A SIMPLE method to help poor African farmers earn money by planting trees to soak up carbon dioxide is being hindered by European inflexibility, a leading forestry specialist is claiming. The accusation, from Louis Verchot of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya, comes less than a month after the UN climate conference in Nairobi, at which the European Union promised to help Africans benefit financially from carbon trading schemes designed to help the fight against global warming. ICRAF and researchers from Michigan State University have developed a method for calculating changes in the amount of carbon stored in soil and trees. By combining satellite pictures with infrared spectrum analysis using cheap ground- based instruments, ICRAF says it could analyse changes in carbon storage across millions of square kilometres of farmland. It has conducted a successful pilot project in western Kenya, and Verchot says the system could be in widespread use by the end of next year but for one snag: the EU is refusing to accept it. Farmers are often regarded as climate villains because of the CO 2 liberated when they burn wood. Yet many poor farmers capture large quantities of CO 2 by planting trees, and many more would do so if given the incentives of carbon trading, Verchot says. The Kyoto protocol and Europe’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) supposedly allow anyone investing in activities that prevent or reduce CO 2 emissions to earn carbon credits, which they can then sell to polluting industries. But the ETS was set up with big forestry schemes in mind, for which estimates of the amount of carbon that will be captured are more reliable, and where there is an element of accountability if things go wrong. Verchot says the best way of getting Africa to take part in carbon trading is to give credits to farmers who capture carbon on their land – a scheme his technology makes feasible for the first time. “Land management is going to be the best way for these poorest countries to join in,” he says. “Millions of dollars in carbon credits could begin flowing to the world’s rural poor.” Although at the Nairobi conference the EU promised to help poor farmers overcome the bureaucratic hurdles involved in getting carbon-capture schemes approved, Verchot told New Scientist that EU representatives have so far rebuffed ICRAF’s proposal. “They don’t want to recognise it,” he says. He likens it to a trade embargo being imposed on the least developed nations. European concerns centre on verifying how much additional carbon is really being captured by farmers’ trees and whether the sequestration will be permanent. Verchot, however, insists that many of the concerns are illusory: “They need to be more flexible,” he says. The system that Verchot wants implemented is among a raft of new responses to climate change announced this week by a network of research institutes known as the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research. Other projects include breeding food crops tolerant of high temperatures. ● SOUNDBITES ‹ I’m very disappointed. This drug, if it worked, would probably have been the largest-selling pharmaceutical in history.› Steven E. Nissan of the Ohio-based Cleveland Clinic on the decision to pull torcetrapib, Pfizer’s experimental drug for heart disease, after it caused an increase in deaths and heart problems (The New York Times, 4 December) ‹ Any hobbyist, including a technically savvy teenager, could build their own surveillance device.› University of Washington researchers on the risk of stalkers tracking a person’s movements by intercepting signals from the Nike + iPod Sport Kit, which monitors the distance and pace of your jog (Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December) ‹ The rapid rise of China in both money spent and researchers employed is stunning.› Dirk Pilat, head of the OECD’s science and technology division, on the news that China should surpass Japan this year to become the world’s second biggest investor in research (Associated Press, 4 December) ‹ We’re going to go after a lunar base. This is a very, very big decision; one of the few where the science and exploration communities agree.› Scott Horowitz of NASA on plans to build a permanent moon base at one of the lunar poles by 2024 (Los Angeles Times, 4 December) ‹ I feel so sick eating as much as 800 calories, and now when I try to purge, I can’t get anything up.› Teenager “Berlinium” writing in a pro- anorexia chatroom. Such websites are claimed to teach people with eating disorders new ways of losing weight (Reuters, 4 December) 10 | NewScientist | 9 December 2006 www.newscientist.com SVEN TORFINN/PANOS –Farmers could harvest carbon credits– Africa ‘barred from carbon trading’ FRED PEARCE
